Whitehall Palace Cinema

Whitehall Parade, London Road,
East Grinstead, RH19 1AP

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Additional Info

Architects: Frederick Edward Jones

Functions: Retail

Styles: Art Deco

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Whitehall Palace Cinema

Located in East Grinstead, West Sussex. The Whitehall Parade was built in 1936. The building has a white stone facade, and contains several shop units and also housed the Whitehall Palace Cinema, which had a restaurant and dance hall attached.

Operating from 1913 in the Grosvenor Hall, by 1934 it had been re-named Whitehall Palace Cinema, and continued until until the late afternoon of 9th July 1943 when the auditorium was destroyed by two German bombs. Inside was an audience of 184, mainly children who were watching a Hopalong Cassidy ‘B’ western, which was supporting the main feature Veronica Lake in “I Married a Witch”. Other bombs were also dropped on neighboring buildings, and in total 108 were killed and 235 seriously injured.

In 2012. the facade remains standing, with a Timpson’s shoe repair shop operating in the former entrance foyer.

Contributed by Ken Roe

Recent comments (view all 3 comments)

Ian
Ian on June 8, 2012 at 7:06 am

A slightly more recent photo of the façade of the former cinema here:–

WHITEHALL CINEMA

Ian
Ian on June 8, 2012 at 7:20 am

The Cinema was actually a conversion of the 1883 Grosvenor Hall in 1913, although the hall had been used for films on occasions before. The frontage was designed by F Edward Jones in 1936 in order to “modernise” the cinema after the Radio Centre / Classic / Cannon began construction.

Mike_Blakemore
Mike_Blakemore on June 29, 2012 at 6:49 pm

Have loaded an earlier picture of the Palace’s Facade

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